


Phrase

by antaeganist



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Genderbending, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Other, but at the same time, genderfluid oikawa, i dont know how this happened, i love oikawa i love all oikawas, it just did, not really a slow build, timelapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 02:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3960235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antaeganist/pseuds/antaeganist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who knew one phrase from a five year old Oikawa would set Hajime's life in stone for the rest of his life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phrase

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how this happened honestly I was thinking about Iwaizumi and a lady Oikawa because I am WEAK to lady Oikawa and rapidly fell into descent and. I'm not sorry at all.

The first time Iwaizumi meets Oikawa, he can’t tell if they’re a boy or a girl. Their hair is cut short and flips out in random directions, but their features are soft and feminine, with long eyelashes and a natural pout. Their voice is a few pitches higher than his own, but they’re still young - five years old and new neighbors.

Hajime hears his mother and Oikawa’s mother in the kitchen, and Oikawa sits in the living room quietly, feeling a little lost at what to do. They had just moved in to this new house next door, and Oikawa’s mother hadn’t expected Hajime’s mother to have a child the same age as her Tooru (Tooru is a boy’s name, Hajime had told himself, but Tooru still looked girly to him), but she was so glad because her Tooru would have a friend to play with.

Tooru had been quiet at first, looking like they felt out of place, or were taking in their surroundings, relaxing and getting more comfortable by the passing seconds. Tooru had been sitting on the couch, Hajime standing off to the side with a volleyball that seemed too big in his hands, fidgeting awkwardly as Tooru observed. And then Tooru spoke.

“Iwa-chan,” _Iwa-chan_? Just who did Tooru think they were, calling Hajime Iwa-chan without even asking him if it was okay? But Tooru sounded so innocent saying his name like that, and Iwaizumi was a long name, so maybe it was okay for now. “You’re going to be my best friend from now on! Okay?”

The way Tooru poses the question really didn’t make Hajime feel like he had a choice in the matter - Tooru had made a decision, and Hajime really didn’t have the ability to counter it. Tooru was his neighbor - he would be seeing them a lot more. Tooru was the same age as him, so they were probably going to be in the same class in school. So Hajime just stares at his new ‘friend’, wonders if it’s all a joke, before giving a sigh, “Okay,”

He feels like he’s made an awful decision, but there’s no going back now. Tooru has already latched onto his arm with a grin (Hajime doesn’t even remember seeing Tooru move from the couch), one finger poking at the ball in his hands. “You like volleyball, right?” It’s a stupid question, and Hajime doesn’t bother to answer, not that he can before Tooru cuts him off before he even opens his mouth. “Iwa-chan is probably a wing spiker, isn’t he? Unless Iwa-chan doesn’t play volleyball?”

“I-I do! I’m going to, I mean, when I’m old enough!” Hajime sounds more defensive than he means to, but his mother said he’s still too young to play, but she’ll let him join a team when he’s a little older. Five is just too little, and Hajime had agreed with her. “I want to be a wing spiker, though. The ace!”

“...” Tooru seems to consider this for a moment, their lips pursing in thought, before they smile. To Hajime, this smile looks genuine, so maybe Tooru isn’t as awful as they seemed with their first statement to Hajime. “Then, _I’m_ going to be the setter that makes you an ace!”

Hajime believes Tooru’s words, five years old and too innocent to realize that it was too big of a statement for someone so young to make. Tooru’s mother makes a comment that Hajime catches, something about her _daughter_ , and Hajime realizes that Tooru is a girl with a boy’s name, but he doesn’t care. Tooru is Tooru, and he can already tell Tooru is going to be a pain to grow up with, but Tooru’s made him a promise that she’s going to make Hajime an ace.

Hajime is too young to realize boys and girls can’t play on the same school volleyball team.

***

Hajime is ten when he begins to really see Tooru as a girl. Her hair has grown out a lot from the first time he met her five years before, but she still acts the same as always. She’s gotten prettier, he notices. Her hair falls in loose curls, framing her face just so, ending in the middle of her back. She has these layers that still flick out in random directions, but they’re so Tooru that it doesn’t take away from her looks.

She has no chest. Not yet. Hajime has seen Tooru change so often that he knows she has no chest. She insists on wearing a training bra all the time, though, and maybe it’s just to show off - but she’s as flat as a board, and Hajime reminds the still nine years old Tooru about this.

Tooru always gets indignant, sticks her tongue out and huffs out a, “Mean, Iwa-chan, mean!” when he forces her to notice that she was severely lacking in the bust area - but that’s just how it is. He’s even heard Tooru’s mother tell her that she likely won’t have a developing chest until she’s twelve, at least. Some girls develop earlier than others, but Tooru was not one of them.

Hajime had to console Tooru that day, over setting and spiking practice in Hajime’s back yard. Even though they could only be on a neighborhood team together, it didn’t stop Tooru from working her hardest to become an excellent setter, and even Hajime could see her skill as a setter. She would always ask for Hajime’s opinion on a toss, and Hajime would give her his honest opinion, and she would fix whatever she did wrong.

Tooru was going to become an amazing setter, and her skills would only help strengthen the team she was on in the future. (Later, Hajime would realize she wouldn’t be on his team. She wouldn’t be the strength of his team. Later, he would realize that once they enter middle school, there would be no Hajime-Tooru pair on the same court.)

They were in their fourth year of elementary - there would only be two more years for Tooru and Hajime to stand on the same court together.

***

Hajime is thirteen when Tooru finally gets a chest - still an A cup, and they’re in their first year at Kitagawa Daiichi. Tooru is newly turned 13, and the fact that she has a small chest that Hajime can’t call flat anymore has given her a new ego. She’s popular, and Hajime hates it. She’s pretty and she knows it, and she’s recently started experimenting with make up when they’re home from school, so she can figure out what looks good on her and what doesn’t.

Hajime watches her when she compares one colour of eyeshadow to another, watches as she opens her mother’s computer and watches YouTube makeup tutorials for how to make herself look perfect. Hajime tells her she looks stupid when she mixes bright green and dark blue eyeshadow, and Tooru repeats her mantra of, “Mean, Iwa-chan, mean!” when he does so.

Hajime is the one who suggest she uses browns and pinks, rather than that kogyaru look she had been going for. The softer colours would look good on her, in his opinion, subtle was always better. It’s one of the first times Tooru listens to him, and one of the first times she realizes he’s right.

Hajime is still thirteen when the Kitagawa Daiichi boy’s volleyball team faces the Shiratorizawa Academy junior high boy’s volleyball team. He’s thirteen when he meets Ushijima Wakatoshi, and it’s the first time he’s ever been glad that Tooru isn’t on his team, because Ushijima is a monster. Hajime isn’t a starting player yet - he’s usually on the bench, simply because he’s a first year with no real outstanding talent, but he’s working on it.

Ushijima is a first year. Ushijima is a starter. And Ushijima is _terrifying_. He’s too serious, too strong for a first year. He’s tall, and has more muscle than Hajime could ever hope of having. He’s too blunt, too tactless, and the instant Hajime sees one of Ushijima’s spikes from where he sat on the bench, he felt a bit of fear.

Tooru wouldn’t have handled it well. She would have been insulted by Ushijima and his spikes, how he acted as a wing spiker, and how incredibly _talented_ he was. How he had the makings of a perfect ace. Tooru would have hated Ushijima if she were on Hajime’s team, would have seen him as a personal goal to exceed, even though they weren’t even the same position.

Hajime decides he hates Ushijima for Tooru’s sake. Because they play the same position.

Because he knows he won’t be the ace Ushijima will be. Not without Tooru to set for him.

***

Hajime was 14 and a third year at Kitagawa Daiichi when a first year by the name of Kageyama Tobio joined the Kitagawa Daiichi boy’s volleyball team. He’s a setter, like Tooru, but Tobio is different than Tooru. Tobio has a natural gift for setting, while Tooru has worked her way up. Hajime notices Tobio watching Tooru more often than not, since the girl’s team and the boy’s team share a gymnasium for practice.

That’s when Hajime first realizes that Tobio admires Tooru. It’s also when he realizes that Tooru is threatened by Tobio. Not literally, of course. But Tooru has noticed that Tobio is a good setter - better than good. He’s fantastic, naturally gifted, but she sees his flaws all the same. He’s too demanding, doesn’t work with his spikers and is easily agitated when they can’t spike his toss well - but his tosses are in perfect form.

Tooru decides she hates Tobio. Tobio decides he wants Tooru to teach him how to serve, when he watches her serve one day. Hajime realizes nothing can end well from here.

***

Hajime has just turned 15 - Tooru is more recently 15, but she’s blossomed much more since they entered Kitagawa Daiichi together. She’s gotten curves, and her chest has filled out much more. Her hair still reaches the middle of her back in perfect curls, and she still uses the neutral colours around her eyes like Hajime suggested when they were 13.

She’s also more popular than she had been before. In two years her chest ballooned up to a C cup. She’s got boys following her everywhere, offering to carry her things for her, but Tooru was such an independent person - independent meaning she made Hajime carry her things for her when she didn’t want to.

Hajime complained, of course, but relented. It was fine. He’s known her for ten years at this point - and it really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

Tooru is 15 when she faces off against her toughest opponents yet in girl’s volleyball. They’re on the same level as Shiratorizawa’s junior high boy’s team, but Tooru hadn’t been practicing as hard as she had been for nothing. While Kitagawa Daiichi’s boy’s team won a set over Shiratorizawa’s junior high team, the girl’s team was being led flawlessly by Tooru. Hajime’s made it a point to catch the girl’s team’s match, the timing just perfect enough to catch the last set.

Tooru is flawless on the court, long hair pulled back and clipped out of her face for optimal vision, and Hajime thinks for a brief moment that she’s the embodiment of perfection. He forgets this thought a moment later, when Kitagawa Daiichi scores their final point against their opponent, and the look of relief and joy on her face when Tooru realizes they won.

Tooru is 15 when she’s given the Best Setter award. She’s an ugly crier, Hajime thinks, with her mascara running down her cheeks in pale black streaks, eyeliner smudging as she tries to furiously rub away her tears. Hajime also thinks she still looks the most beautiful like this, and the most natural.

Tooru is 15 when she almost attacks Tobio when he asks her to teach him how to serve, and Hajime is thankful he’s there to hold her back. Tooru realizes her mistake later, and apologizes to Tobio, but she’s doesn’t feel that sorry.

Tooru ends up getting a lecture from Hajime later on.

***

Tooru is 16 and in her first year at Aoba Jousai when she cuts all her hair off. She doesn’t tell anyone she’s doing it. It’s done professionally, and the curls she had always been so fond of are donated. When Hajime sees her hair cut, he’s reminded of the little girl he had met eleven years earlier - the little girl he had thought was a boy at first glance. He doesn’t hate how Tooru looks, but it’s not what he’s used to, and he almost misses seeing the curls of his best friend bouncing along with her steps when she walked in front of him.

Tooru is 16 when she comes out to Hajime as feeling like a boy - but only sometimes. She likes being a girl - she loves the attention that comes with her beauty, but some days, she doesn’t feel comfortable being a girl. It’s why she cut all her hair off, she says, because it makes days where she feels like a boy easier.

Hajime doesn’t question it. It’s Tooru - even if she’s a girl most days and a boy others, Tooru is still Tooru, the pain in his ass who has been his closest friend for more than half his life.

“So, how are you going to differentiate your boy days from your girl days?” He questions, leaning back on his hands to look at his friend. Tooru shrugs.

“Extensions on girl days, and just my short hair on boy days, Iwa-chan. But, on days where I feel like a boy, can you, um,” Hajime doesn’t remember seeing Tooru as uncomfortable, or awkward is maybe a better word, possibly unsure, as she was then. “Can you refer to me as a boy?”

Hajime is silent for a moment, before nodding, “I thought that was obvious, Shittykawa,” The nickname is familiar on his tongue, and it makes Tooru snort, the tension of the situation lightening some. “You know, you could dress like a boy on your boy days, too. You’re so freakin’ weird that people won’t find it strange if you wear the boy’s uniform one day, and the girl’s the next. I’ll give you one of mine.”

Hajime thinks Tooru might cry, with the way her eyes are tearing up some, but he watches her blink them back. She just gives Hajime a smile and a laugh, and she looks like a weight has been lifted off her chest.

Hajime helps her pass as a boy for when she has boy days - he’s seen her naked more times than he can count, just by being friends with her, so helping her find a binder that makes her appear as flat as possible is nothing to him. They discover the term that describes Tooru - genderfluid. She tells Hajime that when she presents as male, she would rather be referred to as a male. If she isn’t presenting as a male, then to refer to her as a female is perfectly fine.

Tooru comes to school as a girl the next day. She looks the same as she did before cutting her hair, extensions in place, in perfect curls as anyone would expect from her. A few girls question it, why she cut her hair if she’s going to wear extensions, and Tooru just laughs, flipping the extensions over her shoulder, claiming how she can be whoever she wants to be with short or long hair - she has the best of both worlds.

***

Hajime is turning 17 in his second year at Aoba Jousai when Yahaba Shigeru joins the team. He’s another setter, and he’s quite good. His skills aren’t on par with Tooru’s, but maybe Hajime is just biased to Tooru’s setting, even if she hasn’t set to him since their community team days.

Yahaba resembles Tooru a bit - he has similar brown eyes, and his bangs do the same strange flippy thing that Tooru’s do. At the same time, Yahaba is entirely different from Tooru, in demeanor and appearance. His hair is a pale brown compared to the rich chestnut of Tooru’s. His eyes are more fearful than Tooru’s are, but there’s also a steady determination in them. Yahaba is calm, compared to Tooru’s childish personality, but he’s also carefree in contrast to Tooru’s flirty nature. Tooru is cunning, and Yahaba is forceful.

Hajime thinks he can get along well with the first year, and Tooru doesn’t see the appeal. Hajime has to remind Tooru that she can’t be his setter, she’s on the girl’s team, and she’s going to have to deal with Yahaba becoming his setter once their starting setter graduates.

It’s the first time Tooru and Hajime fight, and the first time Tooru ever admits to Hajime that she was in the wrong. Yahaba isn’t a threat to her.

Hajime and Tooru are both made vice captains of their team that year.

***

Hajime is still 17 and just starting his third year at Aoba Jousai when he realizes he’s in love with Tooru.

He realizes it when he gets a call at nine pm, well after he and Tooru should have walked home together, and he gets a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach before he even answers the phone. Tooru had insisted that Hajime go home before her, she would catch up, she was just going to work on perfecting a serve, she was so close to getting it right. Hajime thinks maybe he shouldn’t have left her alone.

“ _Iwa-chan,_ ” Tooru’s voice sounds so broken when he answers the phone, and Hajime can’t bring himself to say anything as he hears her hiccup. He can hear her hiss in pain from what sounded like her moving, and he hears her take in a breath again. “ _Iwa-chan, I need you to help me._ ”

Hajime is already out the door, shoes hastily thrown on with a jacket to brace himself against the cool April night, and he’s sure Tooru can hear his feet hitting the pavement. “What happened, Tooru?” It’s the first time Hajime calls Tooru by her given name, and he hears her hiccup again.

“ _I messed up,_ ” Her voice cracks, followed by a hiccup. “ _I can’t move my knee. Iwa-chan, I’m scared._ ” Patellar tendinitis, Hajime’s mind supplies as a guess. It’s likely been in the works for a while now, with how Tooru tended to overwork herself. “ _It hurts so, so much. I had just been practicing my jump serve when my knee gave out on me when I landed. I thought-- maybe if I rested for a few minutes, I would be okay. But it’s been a half hour and I still can’t get off the floor. Iwa-chan--_ ”

“Calm down, Tooru,” And Hajime wonders what prompted him to start calling her Tooru. She’s always been Oikawa or some insulting variant of her family name for the past twelve years. “I’m already on my way, so just… calm down.”

It’s not fair, Hajime thinks. Tooru was just made captain of the girl’s volleyball team that year, and she’s already injured due to working her hardest for her team. Belatedly, Hajime realizes it’s only Wednesday - and Tooru’s self-set resting days are Mondays.

Hajime finds Tooru on the floor of the gym, phone abandoned next to her, but he knows it’s still on, still on the line with Hajime. It’s on speaker, he can tell by the way he can hear his own heavy breathing echo in the otherwise empty gymnasium, hanging up as he approaches Tooru. She has one hand on her knee - her right knee, and the other has a volleyball that had been near by curled to her chest. Her hair’s a mess, extensions pulled back messily and flyaways everywhere, longer and natural curls sticking to her cheeks and forehead.

Despite this, despite how much pain Tooru is in, Hajime can’t help but find her beautiful. He’s silent as he starts gathering the long abandoned volleyballs Tooru had been serving, and he can feel Tooru’s eyes watching his every move, even as he takes down the net and puts it away, prolonging the time Tooru is on the floor. He knows he could have left it, but as captain of the boy’s team, he feels a duty to clean up after Tooru.

Tooru lets out an undignified noise when Hajime scoops her up - one arm under her knees, being careful of her injured one, the other tucked under her back - and her arms come up to wrap around his neck. She doesn’t remember seeing him grab her bag from the bleachers before picking her up, but she can feel the cloth beneath her thighs, just from how Hajime held her.

He carries her to the hospital, rather than home right away. It’s a better idea to him, to make sure Tooru’s knee will be fine. They’re told it’s patellar tendinitis, just as Hajime thought it was, and Tooru would need to go through physical therapy for the next few weeks to stretch and strengthen the muscle. She’ll need to wear a patellar tendon strap around her knee as well, and Hajime can see Tooru growing frustrated.

Hajime does most of the talking for Tooru. Listens to the doctor’s instructions, because he knows Tooru isn’t listening. She’s too busy being angry with herself for pushing too much when she knew her knee was bothering her for it.

Hajime carries her home - her knee is still bothering her despite being able to move it after quick treatment from the physician who had seen them, and her pain killers have yet to kick in. Over the counter pain killers would work if the pain got to be too much, he had said, and it’s lucky that Tooru always keeps a bottle in her bag for when she gets cramps.

It’s in Hajime’s arms that Tooru realizes she’s in love with her best friend.

***

Tooru wears her patellar tendon strap beneath a white brace. It’s a flat strap, or as flat of one as she can buy, and Hajime thinks the white brace is too flashy - she could have just as easily bought a matching black brace to match her normal knee pad, but it’s Tooru - everything she does has to be flashy, including her supports.

She’s been cleared by her physical therapist to return to playing, and her team welcomes their captain back with ease, overjoyed that Tooru was able to return to them. Hajime is happy to see her play again, taking her spot as a Grand Queen of the court.

(He’s heard this nickname from Tobio’s teammate, Hinata. Hinata calls Tobio the King of the Court, a name that he doesn’t seem to appreciate all that much, and through stories from Tobio, Hinata has decided that Tooru must be the Grand Queen if Tobio is a small King.)

(Hajime believes that Hinata is right, Tooru is a queen, but sometimes a king. She makes sure all of her teammates are getting the tosses they deserve, always asking how her toss can improve. It’s all she can do from being off the team for a period of time, to catch up to her team.)

***

Tooru is eighteen when she watches Hajime’s team lose to Karasuno - lose to Tobio. It’s the first time she sees Hajime cry, from the crushing defeat at the hands of his old kouhai from Kitagawa Daiichi, to his last match as captain of Aoba Jousai’s boy’s volleyball team. The spring high defeat has utterly crushed her best friend, and Tooru hates to see him look so defeated.

She feels lucky that she’s already done her playing in the spring high - They lost, Tooru blames herself, but she doesn’t let her team know that she does, that her knee had been bothering her the whole time, that one bad receive had meant the end of her high school volleyball career.

She can sympathize with Hajime. She does, but silently, and when she sees Hajime leave the gymnasium, she follows. The others on the boy’s team are just as upset as Hajime, but Tooru doesn’t care about them. She never really has, not when Hajime has always been there instead. Her arm moves to circle Hajime, and he finds himself with his face in her shoulder, caught off guard by her actions. Her extensions are in today, meaning today is a girl day, and Hajime finds himself sighing quietly, no more tears left to cry.

“Date me,” It’s a ridiculous suggestion, nearly a command from Tooru, and Hajime has to pull back in surprise. Tooru sees his confusion, and repeats her statement. “Iwa-chan, date me.”

Hajime shouldn’t be surprised when he agrees.

He is.

***

They’re eighteen when graduation hits in March. Hajime gets his diploma before Tooru does, and Tooru is in tears by the time the ceremony is over. She refuses to let any pictures be taken of her before she fixes her make up, and Hajime can only groan at how stubborn his girlfriend can be.

The first picture taken is by Tooru herself, freshly made up and looking as if she hadn’t just been sobbing. It’s a selfie of her and Hajime, her arms wrapped around him from behind with her tongue poking out from between her lips, but it ends up being blurry because Hajime stumbled in surprise. Hajime hears Hanamaki’s laughter in the background, and Yahaba’s worried shouts over his previous ace.

He brushes it off and takes the phone from Tooru, moving behind her to pull her into him, holding the phone in front of them and Tooru grins, cheesily and genuine, a crooked tilt to her lips that came with her natural smile, and even Hajime can’t help but give a genuine smile as he takes the photo for Tooru. It’s a photo he sends to himself after, and it’s set as his phone background for the next eight months.

***

Tooru and Hajime end up going to different schools for University, but they decide to share an apartment, rather than their school’s dorms. Tooru has his binder on and extensions out during the move, having been in a boy mood for nearly two weeks now, but Hajime didn’t mind. It just meant Tooru was his boyfriend until he felt like a girl again, and that was fine.

Tooru likes to wear Hajime’s clothes, no matter which gender he’s presenting as, and he’s taken to wearing Hajime’s Aoba Jousai leisure pants as he goes back and forth, moving things into their apartment. Maybe it’s just because it’s Tooru, but there’s something Hajime likes about Tooru wearing his clothes, maybe it’s the fact they’re a little big on him, maybe it’s a possession thing. Hajime just knows he lies seeing Tooru in his clothes.

***

They’re 21 and stupidly in love just as they have been all their lives - it just took them a little longer to figure it out than they would have liked. Hajime takes Tooru’s gender changes with stride, complying with his sometimes girlfriend sometimes boyfriend’s changes with ease. He’s studying to become a physical therapist, inspired by Tooru’s injury three years ago, and Tooru is an astronomy major because of her fascination with aliens and the solar system.

They’ve lived in the same apartment for three years now, sharing the space with three beta fish and a nine month old kitten that Tooru has named Marie Antoinette, shortened to Mari, because Hajime complained that her name was too long. (Tooru still won, the official adoption document having her name listed as Marie Antoinette, and Hajime couldn’t be bothered to argue with her at the time.)

Hajime can’t recall a time that he’s ever been happier than he currently is as he looks at Tooru laying on the couch in a pair of Hajime’s shorts and her own tank top, extensions in and Mari napping on her chest, thumbing through her notes for her next astrophysics exam.

Sometimes he wonders how this all happened, but with every Iwa-chan that comes from Tooru’s lips, he remembers the phrase that started it all, remembering it exactly how five year old Tooru said it.

_“Iwa-chan, you’re going to be my best friend from now on! Okay?”_

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna make it slightly NSFW but changed my mind maybe ill write a sequel if you guys want it idk s w e a t s


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